Archive for July 31, 2008

For the past couple of days I have been feeding Kalyn a little rice cereal. The first day I mixed it with breastmilk and she liked it just fine. The second day it was thicker and mixed with formula and she quite hated it. So, we will see how it goes from here.

I made many posts today, so if you haven’t yet please scroll down and check all the others out! There are lots of exciting adventures and cute pictures to see.

Last week we traveled to the Oregon Coast with Tim’s family. Tim’s parents rented a beach house in Newport as a gift for last Christmas. It was a wonderful trip and lots of fun.

The best things about the Oregon Coast are, in my opinion, the cool weather, the beautiful scenery, and fresh seafood. While we were there we enjoyed all three of these as much as we could. I love fish at any time, and being able to get such fresh fish and crab was a real treat.

Some highlights of the trip were visiting the Oregon Coast Aquarium, where Kalyn enjoyed seeing the fish. We saw quite a variety of interesting fish, sea life, and birds. We also got to pet a ray and several starfish.

Also, we really enjoyed the Cape Perpetua scenic area. The tidal pools there were the best of all we visited, and the views there are fabulous. The highest point along the coast you can reach by car is at Cape Perpetua and you could see beautiful beach views for many miles on the coast.

We also went with Kaye and Mike and Marinda on a boat tour on the ocean to spot marine life. We were able to seem some beautiful coastal views as well. We spotted a huge school of fish as well and two whales. It is not the migration season for whales, so getting to spot a couple of the “resident” whales was a real treat. Tim didn’t enjoy this as much as I did, but Tim doesn’t share my love of riding on boats. 🙂

I must say, though, that I was not prepared for how much work it is to go on vacation with a baby! Especially a baby who does not seem able to sleep hardly at all in a strange house. We had fun anyway and next time I will be better prepared.

Tim and I have both loved the Oregon coast since we drove highway 101 on our honeymoon. We very much enjoyed this trip as well with all of Tim’s family. My mom was also able to come up and spend Friday with us, as we were not able to visit Redding as we had originally planned.

On the way out and in we stopped to visit with my Grandma and Grandpa Panike. They enjoyed seeing the baby and we enjoyed the visit.

Unfortunately, both Kalyn and I had a cold on the way back, which made for a pretty miserable ride home. Everyone should give Tim a pat on the pack for driving all but 1 hour of a 15 hour drive by himself. Yea for Tim!

The first gallery contains pictures of us at some of our favorite events on the trip. The second gallery contains pictures of the most beautiful places we visited, including views from Cape Perpetua, views of Devil’s Punch Bowl and surfers on Beverly Beach, and views of the coast during our boat tour.

Kalyn turned 5 months almost two weeks ago. It was the day we left for Oregon, and while I really wanted to get a post out, I was just too busy with packing and getting out the door.

In the past month Kalyn has gotten really mobile. She moves all around the room by rolling over both ways. She also has started using pincer movements to pick things up. Her hand eye coordination is getting better all the time.

Her eyes are definitely not going to be blue. I’m a little sad, because I was really rooting for blue eyes. We’re not sure what they’ll end up, though. Right now they are a dark gray-green-blue. I’ve heard everything from 8 months to 3 years as to when babies eyes finally settle, so we will see.

Kalyn loves to suck on everything. It is amazing to me how determined she gets to get things and suck on them. When she sees something she gets a very determined look on her face and then proceeds to do everything in her power to get that item into her mouth. She will go to great acrobatic lengths and it is often difficult to keep something out of her reach despite the fact that she can neither crawl nor walk.

Kalyn is not sleeping well. Vacations don’t help, and she has trouble sleeping through the night. It’s a little frustrating since she used to be such a great night sleeper. We’re working on it. All babies are different, so it is frustrating sometimes to hear other people talk about what they have done that works and then have it not work at all.

In the picture below I kept trying to take pictures of her, but the kept coming out blurry because she wouldn’t sit still. The toy is my attempt to help her keep her arms in one place, but it still came out a little blurry.

I distinctly remember a conversation I had with my mother when I was a teenager. I was stating that long hair is better. My mom said that once women have babies they tend to cut their hair short because it is so much easier. I then stated that I would never, ever cut my hair short because short hair is evil.

Well, I guess my mom was right about something.

After two weeks with short hair, I still have times where I don’t like it at all and other times where I absolutely love it. I’m still figuring out how to style it. Tim likes it, and Kalyn doesn’t seem to have noticed. It is definitely easier and quick to style, which is of prime importance at this point in time.

Kalyn can now roll over both ways. She can continue rolling and also scoot from side to change direction. Using these methods, she can further pursue her all important goal of putting everything into her mouth.

It is fun to see her really be able to move on her own and explore her world.

She doesn’t seem to be interested in learning to sit up on her own, as she is too consumed by her quest to put everything in her mouth to sit still for even a moment.

A couple weeks ago the grape vine on the side of our carport fell down. Last year we got some very delicious raisins from this large and productive grape vine, so we really didn’t want to lose it. Two guys from the ward helped us to put it back up. The vine survived with no significant damage.

I know it’s a little overdue, but I wanted to tell you about our July 4th trip. We went up to Idaho Falls and then spent an evening at Bear Lake with Tim’s extended family. We enjoyed visiting with everybody and the baby had lots of fun. I especially enjoyed visiting with my old friends Michael and Michelle, who should by now have their third child, a baby boy.

We also got to hear that Tim’s little sister, Lara is engaged. Congratulations Lara and Nate!